In 2002, the festival began receiving funds from government organizations, and partnered with artist run centers like Video-In (now VIVO Media Arts Centre) and Grunt Gallery. Founder of the influential Ninja Tune label and half of famed electronic act Coldcut, Matt Black recorded a video introduction for the festival.

Thursday, August 1st at the nightclub Sonar would be indicative of where the festival ended up going in the years that followed. That day featured the festival’s first conference portion, which took the form of a panel discussion called State of the Art with Terry O’Brien (SOCAN), artists DJ Spooky, Lace (a.k.a Fred Pradel), NomIg, and more. After that, the “scratch video” showcase started off with a live-streamed set from Phase4 and Twine, and progressed to a collaboration between Spooky and NomIg and a late night set from Lace.

Patrons of NFF02 enjoyed the first media art installations. Kenneth Newby, Aleksandra Dulic, Adrian Jones, and Camille Baker all presented video installations utilizing the Cycling ’74 program Max to incorporate a level of interactivity with the audience. Programmer for Cycling ’74, Joshua Kit Clayton also performed at the festival’s Glitch and Granular showcase with video artist Sue Costabile.